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I must say, I did not like Dungeons 1 at all. It was pretty horrible, having no idea what it wants to do or to be.

So I was hesitant to try out Dungeons 2. Thankfully, it was on sale at some point so I got it with all the addons and had a blast!
The dungeon building was fun, as was the overworld combat - just the control scheme switch between both was weird as hell.
And it finally found its identity as a game instead the weird mishmash that no. 1 was.
It was fun from beginning to end and I could see some serious potential for fun in multiplayer as well - unfortunately didn't have anyone to try it out with.
A unique Dungeon Keeper/Warcraft mix with varios races that actually play different - whoa!

I'd very much like to get into Dungeons 3 as well, but... 45€. Ouch. Even if Steam didn't just replace the cheap $ with the expensive € sign it would be too much.

Caim said:

On most parts of the internet you tell the sheep to wake up.
But on the RPG codex, the one told by the sheep to wake up is you!

This is IT. Finally a game that not only repilcated Diungeon keeper but improved on it. The overworld angle gives the game a touch of RTS. Like a moba or warcraft 3.

Click to expand...

What the hell is that even supposed to mean?

"I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It's really not my fault." --Arthur Rimbaud on joining the Codex

This is IT. Finally a game that not only repilcated Diungeon keeper but improved on it. The overworld angle gives the game a touch of RTS. Like a moba or warcraft 3.

Click to expand...

What the hell is that even supposed to mean?

Click to expand...

Have you played Dungeons 2? Playing it or watching some gameplay would probably explain it better than I could, but I will try. The trailer sure does a horrible job at explaining what the game does...

In Dungeons 2 (and obviously 3), you kinda play two (and a half) games at once. One is the underworld, where the gameplay is pretty similar to Dungeon Keeper, just more focused on traps, harvesting enemy units and using your own abilities (depending on what race you play you may have an avatar).
The other one is the overworld - where you can send units to from the underworld. On the overworld gameplay is like playing Warcraft without any buildings. You have your units to control in typical RTS manner - which you cannot do in the underworld where they are controlled only indirectly. And the goal here generally is to conquer as much space in the overworld as possible. Which also nicely transforms the environment.
Oh, and the overworld also has patrolling (and partly respawning, at least in the campaign) units which might be opposing you as well as your enemy, so maybe that is what that guy meant with MOBA. Or then again, by now every game where you control a bunch of units is a MOBA I guess

The overworld also serves as the only entrance to competing players'/AI's dungeons. There are usually a few entrances to a dungeon, which you can dig open for more access points to the overworld - however, that also opens it up the other way around, so keep that in mind.
When you march your troops to the enemy's dungeon, they control similar to the overworld, IIRC. That's what I would call the other "half" game, wrecking the enemy dungeon(s)

So the overarching gameplay is: Fortify and expand your dungeon, build troops to send to the overworld (but don't leave your dungeon too sparsely guarded), conquer enough of the overworld to be able to march your troops from there to the enemy's dungeon. Wreck it. And all of that at once.
The beginning of a match is more focused on your dungeon, later on you manage both your dungeon and the overworld action at the same time, and the end game is doing that plus being in your enemy's dungeon.

It's really quite unique. Not its single elements, but how it is all combined.
Mind you, the above is my description of Dungeons 2, it just seems not too much has changed, but who knows.

Edit:
Ow, linux support! That already makes it worth 20 bucks more to me. Guess I'll bite the bullet and have a try once I'm done with what I'm currently playing.

Last edited: Oct 15, 2017

Caim said:

On most parts of the internet you tell the sheep to wake up.
But on the RPG codex, the one told by the sheep to wake up is you!

I'm tempted to try this series from titme to time, but then I go to steam, look at the screenshots and immediately I'm like "Jesus, no".

Click to expand...

The graphics and the "humor" made me avoid the games so far.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the graphics are pretty colourful...
If Dungeon Keeper or WftO look more like Diablo 2, Dungeons looks more like Diablo 3.
I don't really like the style, either, but except for extreme cases, graphic style shouldn't really keep one from playing a game.
What is more important is consistency and Dungeons definitely has a consistent style throughout all assets.

The humor, well... I found the actual game to be far less silly than the trailers made it look (Dungeons 2). But humor is always humor, so... a demo would really be appropriate here.

Caim said:

On most parts of the internet you tell the sheep to wake up.
But on the RPG codex, the one told by the sheep to wake up is you!

Funny thing is cartoony was accepted in wacraft3 or torchlight even if those games were serious in tone.

Now it is hated even if the game is on the humour side and it is a parody of warcraft3\dungeon keeper who were catoony in the first place.

I don't get it.

About the humour, i think it is nice and quite fun, i've just had a moment in which the main hero started to talk like the narrator and when he complained she said she had to cause reviews of dungeons2 were complaining him narrating!

This is IT. Finally a game that not only repilcated Diungeon keeper but improved on it. The overworld angle gives the game a touch of RTS. Like a moba or warcraft 3.

Click to expand...

What the hell is that even supposed to mean?

Click to expand...

Have you played Dungeons 2? Playing it or watching some gameplay would probably explain it better than I could, but I will try. The trailer sure does a horrible job at explaining what the game does...

In Dungeons 2 (and obviously 3), you kinda play two (and a half) games at once. One is the underworld, where the gameplay is pretty similar to Dungeon Keeper, just more focused on traps, harvesting enemy units and using your own abilities (depending on what race you play you may have an avatar).
The other one is the overworld - where you can send units to from the underworld. On the overworld gameplay is like playing Warcraft without any buildings. You have your units to control in typical RTS manner - which you cannot do in the underworld where they are controlled only indirectly. And the goal here generally is to conquer as much space in the overworld as possible. Which also nicely transforms the environment.
Oh, and the overworld also has patrolling (and partly respawning, at least in the campaign) units which might be opposing you as well as your enemy, so maybe that is what that guy meant with MOBA. Or then again, by now every game where you control a bunch of units is a MOBA I guess

The overworld also serves as the only entrance to competing players'/AI's dungeons. There are usually a few entrances to a dungeon, which you can dig open for more access points to the overworld - however, that also opens it up the other way around, so keep that in mind.
When you march your troops to the enemy's dungeon, they control similar to the overworld, IIRC. That's what I would call the other "half" game, wrecking the enemy dungeon(s)

So the overarching gameplay is: Fortify and expand your dungeon, build troops to send to the overworld (but don't leave your dungeon too sparsely guarded), conquer enough of the overworld to be able to march your troops from there to the enemy's dungeon. Wreck it. And all of that at once.
The beginning of a match is more focused on your dungeon, later on you manage both your dungeon and the overworld action at the same time, and the end game is doing that plus being in your enemy's dungeon.

It's really quite unique. Not its single elements, but how it is all combined.
Mind you, the above is my description of Dungeons 2, it just seems not too much has changed, but who knows.

Edit:
Ow, linux support! That already makes it worth 20 bucks more to me. Guess I'll bite the bullet and have a try once I'm done with what I'm currently playing.

Click to expand...

Good sales pitch! Going to finally install Dungeons 2. Got it from some bundle months ago.

There are some clear references for gameplay, but it is mostly Dungeon Keeper and any RTS game that lets you roam a landscape with some units and capture points to hold for resources.
And both on a more simple side - which is kinda good since being active in both maps at once does keep one busy.

Caim said:

On most parts of the internet you tell the sheep to wake up.
But on the RPG codex, the one told by the sheep to wake up is you!

Remember when I said how Dungeons 2 had three actually different races with different traps, heroes, units, focus, etc?
Well, Dungeons 3 has one race. The three races from part 2 were kinda merged into one. Now you have basically three sections in your unit & research tree, but none of those sections really make a full race.
Which makes sense from a story perspective (since you "unify" the three evils in part 2), but gameplay wise it just makes it boring.

In theory, you could still focus on one race. But that would be a hilariously bad play style. For example, traps (which doors count as, too) require being quite a bit into the Orc tree and actual Orc units to produce.
Spells require Demon tree (and gathering mana requires Demon units). Also improving existing researches requires the Demon tree.
Ressurrection requires the Undead tree.

Having a certain mix is vastly superior. Good luck getting high efficiency without doors, or killing heroes in your dungeon without traps slowing them down at least. Or supporting your units with powerful combat spells.
Or without that pretty much mandatory spell that lets you bring back creatures from the overworld very quickly in case you need to fend something off.

Only the undead part seems entirely optional. The only special thing is that they can ressurrect others in a special room. They also ressurrect on their own, but so do the demons.
And you cannot even "build" the undead chaff. Instead, they are "made" for free from defeated heroes (but only if they entered your dungeon first) - and very much limited. Without a special building from the demon tree, you can only have one squad of zombies and one of skeleton archers.

Meaning that if you focused on undead only, you wouldn't have ANY units until the first heroes entered your dungeon and no way to defeat them other than your (rather weak at the start) hero unit. Well, good luck with that
Undead make sense as an addition - after all, why wouldn't you build a graveyard to get some free zombies and a nice support unit (Banshee)?

This one unified race does allow more different strategies than each single race did in Dungeons 3, but that's about it.

I don't get why they took the one great part that set them apart from other DK-style games in Dungeons 2, threw away all those unique units and assets and merged the rest into one.
WTF?!
Maybe it was done for balancing reasons, as some race was superior in Dungeons 2? As if people cared too much about balance in their DK experience. Those games were never perfectly balanced, nor should they.

It's still enjoyable for a time, but I really recommend Dungeons 2 over this.
Dungeons 3 is in the end a very casual experience that you will likely play once and forget. Too bad they went into this direction.

Last edited: Oct 29, 2017

Caim said:

On most parts of the internet you tell the sheep to wake up.
But on the RPG codex, the one told by the sheep to wake up is you!

Remember when I said how Dungeons 2 had three actually different races with different traps, heroes, units, focus, etc?
Well, Dungeons 3 has one race. The three races from part 2 were kinda merged into one. Now you have basically three sections in your unit & research tree, but none of those sections really make a full race.
Which makes sense from a story perspective (since you "unify" the three evils in part 2), but gameplay wise it just makes it boring.

In theory, you could still focus on one race. But that would be a hilariously bad play style. For example, traps (which doors count as, too) require being quite a bit into the Orc tree and actual Orc units to produce.
Spells require Demon tree (and gathering mana requires Demon units). Also improving existing researches requires the Demon tree.
Ressurrection requires the Undead tree.

Having a certain mix is vastly superior. Good luck getting high efficiency without doors, or killing heroes in your dungeon without traps slowing them down at least. Or supporting your units with powerful combat spells.
Or without that pretty much mandatory spell that lets you bring back creatures from the overworld very quickly in case you need to fend something off.

Only the undead part seems entirely optional. The only special thing is that they can ressurrect others in a special room. They also ressurrect on their own, but so do the demons.
And you cannot even "build" the undead chaff. Instead, they are "made" for free from defeated heroes (but only if they entered your dungeon first) - and very much limited. Without a special building from the demon tree, you can only have one squad of zombies and one of skeleton archers.

Meaning that if you focused on undead only, you wouldn't have ANY units until the first heroes entered your dungeon and no way to defeat them other than your (rather weak at the start) hero unit. Well, good luck with that
Undead make sense as an addition - after all, why wouldn't you build a graveyard to get some free zombies and a nice support unit (Banshee)?

This one unified race does allow more different strategies than each single race did in Dungeons 3, but that's about it.

I don't get why they took the one great part that set them apart from other DK-style games in Dungeons 2, threw away all those unique units and assets and merged the rest into one.
WTF?!
Maybe it was done for balancing reasons, as some race was superior in Dungeons 2? As if people cared too much about balance in their DK experience. Those games were never perfectly balanced, nor should they.

It's still enjoyable for a time, but I really recommend Dungeons 2 over this.
Dungeons 3 is in the end a very casual experience that you will likely play once and forget. Too bad they went into this direction.

Click to expand...

I am on the final mission and never used traps. Also, the portal spell research cost 50, this means you can buy it almost for free at the start of the game.

-So, traps are not necessary and portal spell is easy to get no matter which tree you upgrade; This is the opposite of what u said.

-Every race has his strenghts and there are no timers, this mean you can take your time upgrading all of them for the best output. I don't see the problem, the game isn't forcing you to follow only one path.

-The game is on the light side of management, just like the prevous ones. I don't get this "surprise"

-I had quite fun with the game, but at the moment i cannot justify that high price. It is a nice game for 20 bucks